


Life is short

by nepegg



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Aetherborn, Dwarves, Kaladesh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 22:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7952026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nepegg/pseuds/nepegg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dwarf girl who wants to be a famous dragster racer has an unforgettable encounter with an Aetherborn</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is short

Kimani felt dizzy watching the dragsters whizzing around the track, turning from distinct shapes into dazzling blurs of gold and silver. She had never seen a shooting star, but she imagined that they would pale in comparison to the exhilaration of watching the Ovalchase races. The race became almost hypnotic, pulling her in with its rhythms like a metronome, until all she could see was her hands clasping the wheel of her own dragster, and the crowd cheering her name.

Her big brother’s laughter snapped her out of the trance. He and her mother were beaming at her, chuckling.

“And she didn’t want to come!” Her brother laughed.

“It’ll be boring mama,” Her mother echoed with a smile.

Kimani hated being wrong only slightly less than she hated being laughed at but she couldn’t feel the least bit annoyed while the race was on. The energy of the crowd was filling her up with a joy she’d never known – but who would win? She had to know who the best racer in Ghirapur was, so that she knew who she’d have to beat. Why had she waited until she was ten to finally go with her family to the Ovalchase?

With a flash of blue, a dragster screeched to a halt at the finish line a fraction of a second before the other two. Suddenly the air was filled with blaring air horns and confetti – Someone had won!

“Who is that Mom? Who’s the winner?” She asked, tugging her mother’s sleeve

“No one yet,” Her mother said distractedly as she eyed the scoreboards

What could that mean? Someone was piloting the dragster that came in first, right? Minutes passed that were spent by boring adults staring and scrutinizing, counting the score and watching judges ponder and mull.

“Why is no one racing?” Kimani whined

“There’s not going to another race for a while,” Her brother snapped “They have to count the points to see who did the best overall”

Kimani folded her arms and sulked. Why couldn’t it be simple? One car had been faster than the others. With a sigh, she tried to find something exciting to watch. That was when she noticed for the first time the pilot of the car that had finished first as she stepped out of her dragster. She was a tall Vedalken, with a shrewd look to her and purple braided hair. She went with the other dragster drivers into an area under the bleachers – not too far from Kimani’s seat! Her mom and her brother were busily trying to calculate points and standings and whatnot, and Kimani easily slipped away. She learned a long time ago that a Dwarf girl was small enough to sneak in and out of almost anywhere, and so she wasn’t at all worried about getting into wherever all the pilots had gone.

She followed the Vedalken pilot into some kind of lounge that was behind the track. The vedalken took off her goggles and grabbed a bottle of water. Kimani skulked past a guard who was no doubt on the lookout for a taller intruder, and slipped into the lounge. She overheard the vedalken pilot talking about something that sounded as boring as what her mom and brother had been debating over. Something about how the eighth race would be instrumental in bringing her average lap time up to beat Divash and get to face him in qualifiers – nothing Kimani cared for. What Kimani cared about was the goggles that the pilot was holding in her hands. Gold, gleaming goggles of victory. She waited patiently, crouched behind a couch, until she saw the Vedalken drop the goggles on a counter and take a seat. They would be the perfect souvenir to remember the day Kimani decided to become a world famous Dragster driver.

Sneakily as she could, Kimani slipped on over to the counter and began to pull the goggles off of it. She listened carefully to make sure the Vedalken was still talking to a fellow pilot about numbers and units of time and other nonsense as she did so, and almost didn’t notice the Aetherborn at all.

The Aetherborn, a tall ebony figure with glowing cracks of electric blue, was closer to Kimani than any other Aetherborn had ever been. She froze in terror, certain she was about to get into tremendous trouble. Instead, the Aetherborn seemed to wink and put their finger up to their lips. Kimani grinned widely and pulled the goggles off of the counter. She admired them for a second, beautiful and aerodynamically designed, and then stole away a bit too excitedly. She had just made it out of the lounge when she remembered about the guard that had been posted.

“Oh hello there,” The tall human guard said, leaning down to look at her “Are you one of the pilot’s daughters?”

“Um,” Kimani said, sweating “Yes. Definitely. I have to go now though, thank you-“

“Hold on a minute,” He said, smiling warmly “I don’t think you should stray too far – who’s your parent? Divash?”

He pointed to the room full of pilots who were on break and, instinctively, Kimani looked in. Her eyes locked with the Vedalken’s, who cocked her head to the side curiously.

She saw the goggles, Kimani thought, panicked.

“Thank you but no, I think I hear my dad calling from over there!” Kimani said quickly and started to run.

“Those are mine! She’s a thief!”

Kimani’s short, chubby legs were taking her away from the stadium as fast as they could. She found herself bursting onto a busy street and could hear the guard and the Vedalken pilot close behind her. Her only hope was to find somewhere to hide.

“Stop! We just need to talk, little girl!” The guard shouted from behind her. When adults said something they just needed to talk, they always meant that you were in big trouble.

Desperate, Kimani saw a building with an open door and darted through the crowd toward it. She barrelled into an old lady on the way, who shrieked louder than seemed popular and alerted Kimani’s pursuers to her presence. Cranky old lady needs to pay more attention, Kimani thought, upset.

The building seemed to be some kind of foundry where they made servos or thopters, but it looked old, perhaps no longer in business. That just meant that there were more places for Kimani to hide. She climbed up a ladder to a large metal cube with some kind of aperture in it. She heard two voices below her and, not questioning any further, she jumped inside the machine. As soon as she landed inside it, it seemed to sense her weight and a hidden door slammed shut over the aperture. A second later the pilot and the guard entered the factory.

“-VERY expensive, designer item so you’ll understand that I need them back as soon as possible”

“Don’t worry miss Temira, I’m sure the girl was just worried she’ll get in trouble.”

“Oh she will be in trouble when I find her, I promise you that! I have no sympathy for thieving little urchins.”

_You’ll get these back over my dead body you snotty lady_ , Kimani thought, licking the goggles for good measure. Whenever you wanted to keep something you took from someone, you just had to lick it so they wouldn’t want it back. It had never failed her.

The two turned the factory upside down, growing more and more frustrated. Kimani could see through a window in the door of her hidey-hole that they eventually left, the Vedalken’s arms tightly folded and a hilarious expression on her face. Smiling Kimani tried to push open the door of the machine but it wouldn’t budge. She properly planted her feet and pushed with all her might, but still the door wouldn’t open. Trying not to panic, she propped herself up against the walls and lifted herself up off the pressure plate that had sensed her weight, hoping that would open the door, but she had no luck.

Kimani began to sweat as she realized that she had no way out of this. She pushed and pushed with all her might but it became harder ever to do that with all the perspiration on her hand. In fact, she realized, she was sweating far more than normal. It was getting hotter. She reached her hands around the machine and found a vent that was pumping in hot air. With growing horror, Kimani realized she had found some sort of furnace. Starting to cry uncontrollably, Kimani pushed against the door with all her might.

That was when, miraculously, the Aetherborn from earlier appeared. Seeing them filled Kimani with hope and she desperately tried to communicate what was happening. She could hear what was going on outside, but it seemed that the Aetherborn couldn’t hear anything she said. They put their hand up to the glass and were startled to feel how hot the machine was growing. Panicked, they searched the machine for some kind of off switch but could find none. Kimani started to cry again. Maybe there was no way to shut the machine off once it had started.

But the Aetherborn seemed to have a plan. Determined, they tore off panelling from the machine and dug away at the internal filigree and aether-tubing. There was a bright flash of blue a sound like a small explosion, and Kimani heard the heat vent suddenly sputter out. Had they done it? Seconds later, the door of the machine popped open.

“You did it!” Kimani yelled with delight, her face puffy and red from heat and stress. She wrapped her arms around the Aetherborn in joy. Her joy quickly turned to fright however, as she felt something wrong with the Aetherborn’s form – They were missing an arm.

“What – What happened to you?” Kimani asked, stressed.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” they responded, but Kimani wasn’t satisfied. Looking around, she saw in the internal machinery of the furnace the crackling remains of the Aetherborn’s arm.

“You lost it trying to gum up the machine,” She realized tearfully.

“Better I lose an arm than you lose your whole self, little one,” the Aetherborn smiled “Let’s go find your family, okay?”

Her mother had been furious, of course, but the kind of fury that a parent only has when a child goes missing. The kind that is in truth aimed at themselves for letting the child wander off, and always doled out with equal parts of relief. It was a strange feeling, being hugged and scolded at the same time. When Kimani told her what the Aetherborn had done, her mother had nearly crushed the poor thing and insisted that they come home for dinner. The Aetherborn protested, but not even a member of the Consulate could have escaped the hospitality of a grateful mother.

Back home, after predictably being teased by her brother for her big puffy cheeks which had hardly subsided by now, Kimani got to hear all about the Aetherborn. They were named Lukhassar, and had volunteered to work as an assistant for the Ovalchase pilots out of sheer love for the sport. The whole family, including Kimani, delighted in discussing the races with someone who got to be so close to the action. Lukhassar insisted that Temira, the Vedalken, was a notoriously rude pilot whom nobody liked, and deserved any kind of comeuppance she got. The best part was that they neglected to mention that the stolen goggles were never retrieved, and were in fact still hidden in Kimani’s pocket.

At the end of the night, Lukhassar insisted that they had to leave and could not stay the night, and eventually Kimani’s mother gave up trying to convince them otherwise. Before they were gone however, Kimani ran outside to say a proper goodbye.

“I want you to have these,” Kimani said, offering them the goggles “You deserve them more than I do.”

Lukhassar, as Kimani suspected, declined.

“Those are for when you become a big famous racer,” they smiled “Just remember me when you do, okay?”

“Remember you?” Kimani smiled “You’ll be there beside me! Or you’d better be, at least. Here, take them!”

Lukhassar declined again, politely.

“Lukhassar,” Kimani said seriously “On the day of my first race you can give them back to me, okay? You gave up so much for me, I just want to give you something back.”

Lukhassar smiled, and knelt down in front of her. Thrilled, she put the goggles on their head, the gold gleaming brilliantly against the black.

“Don’t forget me, little one,” they smiled “Do you promise?”

“Of course, silly!” Kimani laughed. Her mother came outside to wait with her as they watched Lukhassar walk into the distance.

For the next few days, Kimani would beg to go and visit Lukhassar at the race track, and couldn’t understand why her mother refused. With a steely resolve, her mother insisted she not get too close to the kind and wise Aetherborn. After a week had passed, Kimani had enough and proved how little she had learned by sneaking off again to go to the racetrack and find Lukhassar.

That was the day she learned about Aetherborn and how short their precious lives are.

 

 

Kimani often wondered if Lukhassar had regretted spending one of their final days with her, if they had wasted some of their precious time looking after a selfish little girl who had risked so much just for a material prize. She tried not to be too hard on her young self, but it was hard to deny that making it up to Lukhassar had motivated her ever since. They were the ones she had gotten up at dawn every day to practise for, they were the one she had worked three jobs to buy a dragster for. They were the one she would come in first place for today.

“Excuse me, Miss Kimani?”

“That’s me,” She said, turning. She looked majestic today in her pilot’s uniform, one foot on her magnificent dragster as it glittered in the sunlight. She pulled windswept hair out of her eyes to see an Aetherborn approach her.

“Forgive me, I don’t know you,” the Aetherborn said “But I have something rather cryptic, It’s been passed down by generations of Aetherborn, to the one who adopted me, who requested that I pass it on to you.”

Kimani knew this could only be one thing, but it felt foolish to believe something like that was possible. Something heavy and wet filled her throat, and she didn’t dare speak for fear of it coming out in sobs.

“Do these mean anything to you?” The Aetherborn asked, holding a slightly worn looking pair of golden goggles.

Unable to even thank them, Kimani wrapped them up in a big, loving hug.

“You made it,” she choked out.

The Aetherborn was nonplussed, and seemed to withdraw from her embrace.

“I don’t know you, Miss Kimani. Perhaps you think I am another Aetherborn?”

“No, I know we haven’t met,” Kimani said, sobered by their reaction “I just- Thank you for taking the time to do this.”

“No problem,” they said cordially “Good luck in the race!”

Kimani nodded and watched them leave. The announcer suddenly began to introduce the racers, and Kimani turned to wave at the crowd.

“From Freejam, making her Ovalchase debut, please welcome the young pilot Kimani!”

Kimani scanned the crowd, and found the face of a little girl, who looked overwhelmed by the energy of the race. Kimani pointed to her and winked before hopping into her dragster.

_Life is short Lukhassar,_ she thought as she revved up her car, _let’s go live it._


End file.
